Mortal vain, thy course is run, Thou hast seen thy setting sun-- Told I not true when I saw thee last, That 'ere the circling year had passed, Under the greenwood thou should'st be dying, On the bloody greensward lying! Deceived once, I tell thee never Shall my victim from me sever-- Thou hast dared to brave our hate, Rashly run upon thy fate! Thou art on the greensward dying, Underneath the greenwood lying! The hounds bayed. The moon entered a dark cloud; and, when it emerged, its pale beams fell upon the green amphitheatre and the aged tree; but there was no one under its shade. The following tradition is still related amongst the surrounding peasantry:--The Baron Rudolf, it is said, was enticed to sign over the bodies and souls of his future offspring to the fiend, Heidelberger, on condition that the latter would enable him to gain the person and possessions of the Lady Agatha. The contract, however, was obliged to be renewed at the birth of each child. Should he violate this convocation (which he signed with his own blood,) he granted similar power over himself; and the legend goes on to relate, that the whole of the members of the charmed circle were persons similarly enticed, who were doomed to a sort of perpetual labour, being compelled to chisel out their coffins in stone, which as soon as finished, were broken in pieces, when they were obliged to begin afresh. The consequence of the Baron's non-fulfilment of his convocation have already been seen; his son is related to have died childless, and the property to have been dispersed into the hands of others, having never remained since his death more than two generations in one family; apparently blighting all its possessors. And the peasantry aver that the noise made by the continual labour of its victims, may still be heard by the adventurous at the close of day. VYVYAN. * * * * * SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY. * * * * * _On Planting Poor Light Land_. Besides paring and burning, and trenching the soil previous to making the plantation, Mr. Withers, (who received the large silver medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. London, for experiments conducted on the subject in Norfolk,) spreads on it marl and farmyard dung, as for a common agricultural crop, and at the same time keeps the surface perfectly free from weeds by hoeing till the young trees have completely covered the ground. The progress that they make under this treatment is so extremely rapid, as apparently to justify, in _an economical point of view_, the extraordinary expenses that attend it. In three years, even oaks and other usually slow growing forest trees have covered the land, making shoots by three feet in a season, and throwing out roots well qualified, by their number and length, to derive from the subsoil abundant nourishment, in proportion as the surface becomes exhausted.--_Trans. Soc. Arts_.